1 in 1 Russian ships sail in the Black Sea Photo: Umit Bektas/File/Portal Russian ships sail in the Black Sea Photo: Umit Bektas/File/Portal
To counter the current Ukrainian offensive, Russia will build a naval base in northern Georgia. European country bordering the southern Russian citiesthe local government said.
The base is operated in Abkhazia, a separatist region Georgia led by a proRussian government.
“We have signed an agreement and in the near future the Russian Navy will have a permanent base in the Ochamchire district,” the leader of separatist Abkhazia Aslan Bzhania told the Russian newspaper Izvestia.
Russia and Georgia have complex relations. The two countries fought a brief but extremely violent war in 2008, stemming from tensions caused by Georgia’s desire for rapprochement with the West.
After the conflict, Moscow recognized the independence of two separatist regions in the north of the country, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where it currently maintains a military presence.
Aslan Bzhania, who is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, said the aim of the agreement is to improve the defense capabilities of both Russia and Abkhazia.
“This kind of cooperation will continue,” he told Izvestia.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian facilities in Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
In late September, Kiev bombed the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, claiming to have killed more than 30 Russian soldiers.
This Thursday, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, accused the Ukrainian army of attacking the city of Rylsk with cluster bombs, a controversial weapon.
“A woman was injured by shrapnel and taken to the hospital,” the governor said in Telegram.
In July, the US government announced that the Ukrainian army had begun using this type of weapon supplied by Washington. The operation is controversial because the cargo is distributed and can cause many civilian casualties.